During this process, the friend in question offered to give me $50 to pay for Health Insurance. While I don’t believe he intended the offer in malice, to me it showed a genuine lack of respect for me as an individual, and a fundamental chasm between the way he and like-minded others looked at their fellow humans.

It wasn’t until I saw this video of a recent Tea Party protest where one angry protester throws dollars at a man with Parkinson’s that I realized the reason why I reacted so negatively to his offer. My friend, regardless of intent, made me feel like the guy with Parkinson’s, sitting silently on the ground while insults and dollars are thrown at him, essentially telling him, “We’re healthy and rich, you’re sick and poor, now go fuck off!” If you haven’t seen the video, here it is:

We live in a world of our own making. How we treat our neighbors, family, friends…even when we disagree is the greatest measure of our humanity.

Before the de-friending occurred, somewhere amidst a $50 Paypal transfer and my outright shock of the depth of his self-entitled rant, he forwarded me a Glenn Beck video and asked me to watch it. Having never actually watched Glenn Beck’s show, I acquiesced. This turned out to be a bad descision.

Thinking that somehow Glenn Beck would convince me that Health Care Reform in this country would lead to Nazism in America was possibly THE WORST argument he could have presented. Here’s the ACTUAL VIDEO he sent me asking me my “honest opinion.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say. Trying to follow Glenn Beck’s line of reasoning or finding accuracy in his logic is like trying build a house of cards with a retarded kid who just keeps screaming “UNO! UNO! UNO!”

So yesterday, after my epiphany about the Tea Party Parkinson’s video, when I saw this brilliant rant about Glenn Beck by Jon Stewart, it all tied together for me:

This is how I lost a friend in the Health Care Reform debate: Compassion.

You see, you can’t quantify compassion. You can’t solve compassion with an equation or by throwing dollars at people any more than you can draw conclusions by drawing circles on a blackboard. When someone is sick, you shouldn’t have to ask if they can afford to live.

It shouldn’t even be a factor.

It’s not my job or my mission to convince my ex-friend otherwise. It just made me sad that he doesn’t see just how wrong he is. Or how he made me feel. Or how he chooses to treat his fellow man. He lacks the fundamental human capacity for compassion. And I choose to not to live in his compassionless world.

If we live in a world of our own design…of our own making…I want mine to be a compassionate world. A happy world. A world where someone with Parkinson’s or Asthma or Cancer doesn’t have to be mocked or condescended to because they are sick, or worry about whether or not their insurance provider will cover this particular trip to the emergency room. That’s MY American dream.

Unfortunately there are some friendships that have been sacrificed along the way. I’ll gladly trade those for logic and reason and compassion any day.

Now I’m going to go outside and enjoy the rest of this beautiful spring day. You should too!

A lot of debate is raging across the country on Health Care Reform. But for me, the true litmus test for whether or not the current proposed legislation is a win for the Insurance companies is to watch their stocks.

In the past month the stock prices of the top 4 health insurers (WellPoint, Aetna, UnitedHealth and CIGNA) rose an average of 2.8%.

This could mean two things: 1) The current proposed legislation is a win for the Insurance companies, or 2) Investors don’t think the legislation will pass.

With most odds makers betting on legislation passing, it just looks like this is a win for the Insurers.

The level of anger and hatred displayed by the Tea Party protesters in this video is appalling. Simply appalling. I can not believe actual human beings would act this way towards another person.

One white dude in a tie, khaki pants and donning shades and a cell phone strapped to his belt can be seen literally THROWING DOLLARS at another man who sits silently on the ground with a sign that reads “Got Parkinson’s? I do and you might. Thanks for helping.”

These Tea Party protesters have fallen into the trap of becoming so entrenched in their principles that they’ve forgotten how to be a human being….how to be an American.

True Americans care. True patriots don’t scream or throw angry dollars at others who have debilitating diseases (remember when Rush Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox, saying he was faking his shakes?). This kind of behavior is similar to what we were seeing last summer during the “Town Hall Meetings”. I dubbed it Angryface syndrome.

It’s also why I’ve lost total respect for anyone who chooses to associate themselves with the Tea Party. The Tea Party is filled to the brim with closet racists, religious fanatics and some of the most hateful and narrow-minded people in the country. They’re not patriots, they’re self-entitled scumbags who don’t deserve any compassion.

They certainly display no capacity for compassion in this video. Don’t take my word for it…watch the pleated pants dickwad for yourself:

On the Fox Business Network, a host chided a vice president of WellPoint, which has just told California customers to expect huge rate increases: “You handed the politicians red meat at a time when health care is being discussed. You gave it to them!”

Nearly 1 million self-insured individuals (self-employed, small business owners, etc) in California who buy insurance on the individual market — as opposed to getting it through their employers — are covered by Anthem Blue Cross, a WellPoint subsidiary.

These are the people who were recently told to expect dramatic rate increases, in some cases as high as 39 percent.

But WellPoint says it’s not that…they had to raise rates because they’re in a Death Spiral.

“Every time the reform seems less likely that it will happen, the entire group trades higher,” said Perry, who has advised his clients to buy shares of Wellcare Health Plans Inc. (WCG), recently up 1.3% to $36.74, and Humana Inc. (HUM), up 1% to $42.26.

Among the other recent gainers in the sector, Aetna rose 2.7% to $32.65, Cigna Corp. (CI) added 2.3% to $36.41 and Well Point Inc. (WLP) gained 2.7% to $58.07. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) added 1.6% to $30.99.

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee rebuffed two amendments to include the public option in its health care reform bill. The first amendment, offered by Jay Rockefeller went down 15-8. Chuck Schumer’s amendment failed to pass by a 13-10 vote.